The Next Great Adventure

Tonight an incredible person went home. I had the privilege of working for him for the past 13 1/2 years. He was intelligent, compassionate, far thinking, and always in for a good joke. He loved God, his family, his neighbors, his employees.

He was always looking at how things might impact other people, looking for ways to make things better. It was a joke around the workplace that when we weren't sure what to do, we'd ask ourselves WWJD (the J was for his name--and it was not to be disrespectful of the other J that letter stands for). Coincidentally, before the heart attack that took his life, my deputy and I had just asked ourselves that very question this afternoon, and we made the choice to follow the spirit of the law rather than the letter--and serve the community ... just as he would have done.

This man took a chance and placed me in a management position, when I'd had very little experience in it. I hope I never disappointed his confidence in me.

My heart goes out to his family at this time of loss. I know he's in a good place (what Dumbledore called the next great adventure), but I feel for their loss. I know what it's like to come home to an empty house ... empty even when there are other people around. The husband who's not there anymore to talk to, plan with, joke with, love. The father who's not at your high school graduation. The grandfather you don't know except in pictures.

Most of all I think we'll miss his presence. His position was a very influential one, and he was always looking ahead, searching for ways to make things better for the employees he managed and for the community he served.

Jim, I'll be sure to make arrangements to have one of your rooms on the other side completely wrapped in foil as you inspired my immediate coworkers to do when I returned from my 25th wedding anniversary cruise. Who knows what you'll have in store for your family, when they finally join you!


Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away to the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
That, we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way
which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect.
Without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolute unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?

I am but waiting for you.
For an interval.
Somewhere. Very near.
Just around the corner.

All is well.

~~Henry Scott Holland